One of the really interesting things about travel is how well it condenses your life down to what’s important to you. What clothes you find the most comfortable and durable, what shoes support your feet on the old cobblestones, smooth concrete, bumpy warning strips, slip the least on slick stone and keep your feet the driest when you decide that the puddle over there needs to be stomped in with both feet. What’s most important to you in the morning when you actually have a reason to get up. What things you actually want to see, and what things you’d rather not waste your time or money on. College kind of does the same thing for you. Limited funds and limited time means you value everything just a little bit more. The hours you spend talking with your friends over (several) cups of tea is what you’re going to remember. The sweet little cafe with the most amazing creme brulee you’ve ever had paired with Turkish coffee that was surely from the gods. Finding that cafe is the adventure, the food the reward to savor, the company….essential.
There’s a new trend out there called foodies. People who’s hobby is food. Every genuine foodie has one universal thing in common, the realize the importance of good food, and good people to feed the body and soul. They love feeding their people. With all the electronic complications this era offers us, with all the constant demands of daily life and body maintenance, with how distant we’re supposed to keep ourselves in public, I think the “foodie” movement is an inevitability. Whether we grew up with family dinners or not, we’re beginning to realize the nourishment that is getting together over homemade food with people important to us extends beyond satiation. There is a simplicity in food preparation, in mise en place, the sounds of a kitchen in preparation, the pure colors of fresh food, the amazing taste and near constant conversation (have to pause to stuff our faces) that gives us peace. Here is something we know, here is something we can control, here is where we can grow, and experiment while paying due respect from where we came from. Here is life, condensed.
Europe, to me, is a simpler place. It could be because my life is simpler when I’m there, or merely the fact that I take more time to just stop, and see what it is that’s really around me. Whether it’s the oldest cultivated garden in England or merely the way the light shines at a particular tube station, there is always something around you that demands your attention, your recognition of its simple beauty.
I think that all too often, we forget where we came from in this country. We have this tendency to doggedly move forward, always forward. To knock it down and build again, better this time, faster, cheaper, bigger, bolder, more. The engine of progress is quite something to behold to be certain, but where is our past? Where is our reverence? We are who we are because of where we came from. Sadly, where we come from in this society tends to be knocked down and bulldozed. We have kids looking for reason in their lives everywhere. It’s hardly unique to the States, but, when was the last time you went somewhere that had been standing for longer than all the relatives you can name lived? When was the last time you touched something that took generations to build?
Traveling isn’t about seeing places you haven’t seen before, it’s about understanding that you’re human. It’s about understanding what it means to be human. To dream, to put your soul into your work, to sit with the people you would move mountains for, cross oceans for, to eat food that is someone’s calling, rather than minimum wage job, to nourish yourself and those around you with sites, sounds and smells of centuries, of people, of life.
One of the most truly amazing things about traveling, is that there is no possible way you can avoid the fact that you are truly part of something so very much bigger than yourself. As a child London seemed otherworldly to me, ethereal. Reading about quid and rows in my childhood books made them all seem so very similar and so very different. Standing in the middle of Paddington, I can assure you, the Brits are very much like us, and so very unequivocally different. Commonality has nothing to do with language, however. Hell, I’m probably far more Belgian than I am British.
Humans are a beautiful and savage creature, capable of the most astounding things, and the most depraved acts. What makes them depraved is that we are all aware of how wrong they are, but some of us still do them anyways. What makes the others the most astounding is that we have no idea we’re even capable of them, but we do them anyways.
There is no possible way, that a Roman Empire stonemason in the 1st century had any idea that the wall he was creating with everyone else “drafted” to this project would stand 20 centuries later. I cannot even grasp that this wall was someone’s gigantic pain in the ass job over 2,000 years ago. Even when I rest my fingers upon it’s cold surface, I still cannot comprehend its solidity; its link to the past. A roman wall? From the Romans? The time of Caesar? Surely, that’s only in history books. Our time on this earth is so fleeting in comparison to what we could ostensibly leave behind. Hell, it’s fleeting in comparison to all of the real things we leave behind; our children, our grandchildren, our teachings. I think, traveling, and being constantly reminded of the fact that we all hail from some poor shlub who built this gigantic wall/cathedral/palace does a person a lot of good.
We’re all part of something so much larger than ourselves, and I believe it’s our duty to continue that movement forward. We can do that by remembering, by stopping and remembering what it is that we live for, our friends, our family, and the time we spend with them. That our humanity is what we live for.
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My travels were great, I, of course, got sick, because I have the immune system equivalent of swiss cheese. Did all the obnoxiously touristy things in London: St. Paul’s, Tate Modern, Westminster, Covent Garden, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, heck, even saw a play (Dealer’s Choice). Found lovely hole in the wall places that I’ll drool over or that have ruined a particular dish for me (you try having any old creme brulee after this: 
it’s not going to happen). Belgium shall have to be returned to so that I can actually get my freaking beer (who closes monasteries until I leave the country - that was planned I’d wager!). Sven is just one of those good people and I feel honored to have actually met him and help eat all of his food and drink a good chunk of his beer. Everyone from Ars, you were fantastic and I’m so glad that none of you made a neutral situation horrible (you all made it great instead). Dutch is the most hilarious sounding language I have ever heard, simply because it sends my brain into a twitching fit (I swear that was just English…now it sounds like the Swedish chef…back to English). I believe my traveling addiction was fed…for about 6 months, then I’ll get the itch once again.
Oh, and don’t ever waste your freaking time or money and go to Tower Bridge.
Tower of London and St. Paul’s I cannot say enough awesome things about: great, fantastic, excellent tours, beautiful architecture, waste days there and you won’t live to regret it. Westminster see, just because you should, it’s astonishing in its own regard. Tate Modern…it’s an modern art museum, go because it’ll at the very least make you scratch your head at some people’s idea of “art”.
Base2Stay was an actually decent hotel. I have no ill words for them (I want a bigger bed, not by a window, but “eh”).
Brussels and Ghent are gorgeous cities that need more time exploring their nooks and crannies. Limonada in Ghent is a fantastic cocktail bar that I insist you find (yes, it’s down a dark alley, no you won’t die). I’ll do more appropriately touristy things on my return visit(s?). Oh, and curry ketchup is a thing of the gods. I’m going to a restaurant supply store to buy my own squeeze bottles to try and replicate this. I simply must have more of it (mmmmfrite).
Oh, and much love to Sven <3. I want to see pictures of the house when it’s finished!
